


Though Thou Warp the Waters

by Catchclaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Alive, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Dean, Multi, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:08:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first month, Sam and Cas searched without stopping, even though they'd had no idea where to look.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though Thou Warp the Waters

**Author's Note:**

> For yeswayappianway, by way of thanks.

They’re driving east, the sunset flaming out the rearview and the dark oozing towards them, one mile at a time.

“How much further?” Cas asks again, his voice soft and strained.

Sam’s fists go tight on the wheel. He’s been holding it for so long that his palms feel more like groove than plane. 

Cas is the one with the map, technically, the one who’s been pointing the way, but the closer they get, the more uneasy he’s become, the more uncertain as to their direction.

Granted, the map’s sort of crap, printed off in a hurry at the Kinkos two blocks from their apartment in Cloverdale, Iowa. It was blurry to begin with, set not quite straight on the page, and sixteen hours in Cas’ hands, folded out on his knee, haven’t done it any favors. Still, it’s gotten them this far, less than two miles from Henderson, New York. From what may or may not be Dean.

“About two miles,” Sam says. “I think. Give or take.”

Cas grumbles, discontented, and pitches forward. To Sam, it looks like he’s trying to stare down the dark.

He’s angry with himself, Sam thinks. More than anything else, Cas is pissed that he can’t just zap them straight there, as he would have done, once, before Gabriel clipped his wings.

“To my knowledge,” Cas had said to them, the first time he tried to explain it. “This is Gabriel’s only condition. His only restriction of my powers, now that I have chosen to remain with you, rather than return to heaven with him.” He sighed, rolled his shoulder into the bed. “But given my brother’s fondness for the unexpected, I cannot be certain that this is so. I sincerely hope it will not affect my ability to assist you.”

“ _Assist_?” Dean’d snorted. “Get real, dude. You’re a card-carrying member of the team for keeps now, babe, whether you like it or not.”

He’d sat up a little, just enough to break the circle of Sam’s arms, and reached out across the sheets. Squeezed Castiel’s hand.

Cas had laughed, the little private one he saved for when they were like this, slurry with sex and with sleep. “Whether I like it or not? Is that a threat?”

Dean’d shifted again, pulled, and then Cas was right there, pressed against Dean’s chest and grinning up at them both. “Sure. If that floats your boat, sunshine. You call it whatever you want.”

Cas had rolled his eyes and kissed him, emphatic, his fingers sneaking over Dean’s hair and up, curling into Sam’s neck. Sam took the hint and tipped his chin, nipped at Dean’s ear. 

“If anybody’s boat’s gonna be floating here, baby, I think it’s yours,” he’d said.

Dean’d raised his head. “That is the dumbest line. That is the dumbest fucking line, Sammy, _shit_ , Cas! Oh, you son-of-a--” 

His hips had jerked, then, up into Cas’ fist and Sam’d caught him, clapped a hand to Dean’s side and held him still, held him down while Cas chuckled into his throat, stroked his cock quick and hard.

“What were you saying?” Sam had hummed, nudging his thighs against Dean’s. Dean was still wet from before, still open, and Sam rocked against him, a reminder. “Hmm? What’d you say? We didn’t get that.”

Dean’s head had fallen back, helpless, landed hard on Sam’s shoulder. He’d teetered between them, Sam kissing his neck as Cas bit at his mouth and jesus, Sam thinks now, his knuckles going white on the wheel, his brother is gorgeous like that. The way his skin goes gold when they touch him, the way he holds on to them both, his hand in Cas’ hair, his nails in Sam’s thigh, the way he always wails when he comes, a sound so open and sweet, so gentle unguarded, god, he--

The way he used to, Sam thinks, uneasy. The way that he had. Who knows what he’ll be like, now?

Sam and Cas, they don’t talk about what ifs. They haven’t, all this time. No discussion of _what if he’s hurt?_ or _what if he’s dead?_ or _what if we never find him_?

It’s that last one that’s kept Sam up night after night, that’s kept him perched on their narrow couch instead of set against Cas in the sheets. 

Most nights, Cas will touch him, spread his fingers over Sam’s neck, skin still slick from the shower and say: “Sam.”

Sam’ll lean his head back and tug Cas’ mouth down to his. “Yeah,” he’ll say after a moment, blowing the words over Castiel’s chin. “You go ahead.”

Cas will make a sound, like windchimes at a distance, and kiss him again. Encouragement. Reassurance. 

And when Sam does go to bed, finally, shucks his jeans and climbs under the covers, Cas will curl into him, sleek and warm, hum Enochian into his ear and run his fingers through Sam’s hair, again and again.

But now, now, the air is brittle, tinfoil in the heat, the light retreating as they make the town limits. Sam reaches over, grabs the map and slaps it to the steering wheel. Starts ticking off turns.

Left at the light, he tells himself. Two blocks or so, then another left. It’s Amhurst Street, right? Yeah. Looks like a red house.

But Google Maps lied. It’s not red, 402 Amhurst. More of a rusty brown, dead leaves among a sea of ranch houses in white.

  


* * *

  


The barn they’d been in, three months ago, the day they’d lost Dean, it’d been white once, maybe. But the paint had long since faded, worn down by prairie winds and a century’s worth of dust and decay.

“Ugh,” Dean’d said, then, slamming the driver’s side with bang. “This is really gonna suck, isn’t it?”

“No kidding,” Sam’d said, scowling into the darkness, at the long night that lay ahead. “What was your first clue, dude? What part of catching a demi-god ever said _awesome_ to you?”

Cas slid up between them, neatly defusing. “Actually, depending upon their manifestation, many demi-gods are quite capable of inspiring awe.”

Dean laughed. “See? Thanks, Cas.” He picked up his bag and cradled it, cupping the urn to his chest. “Let’s go scare us up some awe, boys.”

How the ancient vessel of Eurus, Greek god of the Eastern Wind, had ended up in the university archives in Kearney, Nebraska, nobody seemed to have any idea. There was no record of its acquisition, no trace of it in the archive’s catalog. And the unfortunate grad student who’d stumbled across it a week before and accidentally booted it over, he had no fucking clue.

“This, like, _flood_ came out,” the guy’d said, waving his hands in Sam’s face, in the direction of Sam’s notebook. “And I had to fucking beat it for higher ground, man! I mean, I don’t know what it was, ok, but there is no way that little jar held enough water to swamp this whole basement, man. No freaking way. And the wind!” He twirled around, handlebar mustache flying. “Motherfucker! Had a punch like a twister, I’m telling you. Blew the whole room to shit and back.”

The vessel, that’d been the key. Not much bigger than a Mason jar; easy for Dean to gank after hours. The figures on the urn, in turn, winged and ancient, helped them identify the culprit, helped them pick up the demi-god’s trail: a series of floods in dormant fields nowhere near water that led out east from the city. Had led them to that crumbling barn set in acres of dead farmland.

Right into the thing’s wrath.

Maybe they were out of practice. Sam's wondered about that, since. Maybe they’d gotten arrogant, even. Putting the kibosh on the Apocalypse might’ve pumped up their collective egos a little too much. But that had been, what, two years ago by then?

Anyway, in the barn, it didn’t take long for their plans to crumble.

“Do you know how long I have been here, among you?” Eurus howled, battering itself against the binding circle Cas had woven, elemental magic and grace. “How long I have shaped and sorted this plane?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, rolling the vessel in his hands. “I do. Too fucking long, Glinda. Time for you to make nice and get back in your cute little bottle.”

Sam was only half-listening, his mouth turning awkward over the Greek incantation that Rufus had assured them would work. No doubt, Cas would’ve been better at it, the chanting, but only he had the mojo to hold the god still long enough for Sam to cast it back into its urn.

“Not so much to look at, are you,” Sam heard Dean sneer. “You’re like, angry glitter in a jar, or something.”

“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice strained. “That is unnecessary.”

Dean laughed, the sound ringing off the rafters, bouncing off the walls and into the night. “Hey,” he said. “Take your last look, Aguilera! Nobody’s gonna be rubbing your lamp for a long, long time.”

“Dean!” Castiel snapped, and that-- 

One moment, Sam was chanting, two lines from the end of the spell, and the next, Eurus was screaming, like a hurricane channeling Wagner. The binding broke like so much rock candy and then they were all in the dirt, forced flat by the wind, a gale that was vicious and lithe.

Sam worked his eyes open. He got a glimpse of Dean beside him, his body curved around the vessel, and the next moment, Dean was yelling, moving, yanked up into the air, the air that was suddenly, terribly, silent. 

“So,” Eurus said, its voice sweeping through every crevice, rising up through the ground. “You wish to contain me. To render me silent and still. Another millennia of stasis, of quiet, of unbeing. This is what you desire for me.”

Sam tried to stand up, to lift his head, even, but there was a weight on his chest, his whole body, as if he were smothered in concrete. To his right, upside down in the dirt, he saw Cas do the same, saw his face contort and then recoil as he realized what Sam had: they were trapped now, pinned down like bugs.

The wind lapped at Sam’s face, at his hands. “Yes,” Eurus trumpeted. “You see what it feels like: to be, to think, to live, and yet to be rendered still, unmoving. And I, an Anemoi, god of the wind! To such a fate you would condemn me. Such a death.”

Above them, eight feet off the ground, Dean’s body snapped like a flag and Eurus laughed, an awful earthquake of noise that made Sam’s stomach turn.

“But you, _vlákas_. Not so bold are you now. With you, hmmm. What shall I do?”

It shook Dean again and Dean screamed, high and hurt.

No, Sam thought, furious. No. We don’t save the world from biblical destruction and then get knocked off by a peon, by a sub-entry in Edith Hamilton’s _Mythology_. No fucking way.

He closed his eyes, fought back over the words of the spell, trying to summon the last line in his mind. Maybe, maybe if only he could remember the incantation, he could--

Then there was a roar, like the air was unravelling. A blast of terrible, ethereal light.

“No more,” Castiel boomed, in all of his glory. “You will not. No more.”

Eurus bellowed and Cas’ eyes burned and the whole barn went to shit, wood flying and the ground shaking and Dean still caught, still dangling in mid-air like a yo-yo, even as the building broke up around them.

“The vessel,” Castiel said in Sam’s head, somehow. “You can move now. Take it up.”

Sam reached out, blind, and there it was, beside him. He caught it in palms and staggered to his feet as Castiel started to chant, the Greek beautiful in his mouth. Terrible.

“ _Aéra sto neró_ ,” he sang, “ _mía forá o̱s tó̱ra, o ánemos pou kápote í̱tan sto neró_ \--”

Eurus twisted, made Dean twist, too, and then it laughed again, this time in the face of an angel. 

“Have me, then,” it cried over Castiel’s voice, over the maelstrom. “But this one, you will not.”

In the air, Dean’s body rocked back as if he’d been struck and there was a split second when Sam thought Eurus would break his brother in half.

“Dean!” he screamed, just as Dean’s face was swallowed in terror.

“No!” Dean shouted. “No, please, god, don’t--!”

And then he was yanked away, like he’d been punched out of a cannon, up into the sky, a meteor in reverse.

Eurus cackled, like a bellow blown up from hell. The sound spread out around them, across the remains of the barn, even as the air around them settled, as a pool of water fell, started to form, at Sam’s feet. 

“ _Aéra_ ,” it sighed, the water rising, spilling over the floor, towards what was left of the wall. “ _Mía forá o̱s tó̱ra. Aéra o̱s tó̱ra_.”

“The vessel,” Castiel said, urgent. “Now, Sam.”

Sam hit the ground and tipped the jar and the water that filled the whole floor, now, that licked at the edge of the fields, it rushed into the vessel. All of it. Every drop.

And only when the dirt around them was dry again, dusty, when the wind was as dead as the prairie, did Castiel reach for him, his eyes tight with fear.

“Sam,” he said, unsteady. “Something's wrong. I can’t--I can’t see Dean. Anywhere.”

It was more than a limitation, another hiccup in Castiel’s powers, because no one, it seemed, could find Dean.

They tried divination.They tried Rufus and Bobby’s sandblasted spellcraft. They even tried calling up heaven.

“Nope,” Gabriel had said, genuine and sad. “I’m sorry, bro. If he’s out there, he’s totally off the radar. Never seen anything like it.” He leaned back against the Impala, aiming for some of his old nonchalance. But it didn’t work. It clashed the aura he wore, the air of a king, of a God, now, and even his smirk couldn’t hide it. “Let that be a lesson to you, boys. Don’t fuck with deities of the elemental, especially the minor league ones. Those little bastards never play nice.”

The first month, Sam and Cas had searched without stopping, even though they’d had no idea where to look. Except east of Kearney, Nebraska. Sam figured Eurus’d probably stuck to his playbook, being the god of the Eastern Wind and all. It wasn’t much, especially since half the damn country was east of Kearney, and there was no guarantee that Dean was still in the United States, anyway.

But it was something. More than anything else they had to go on. So. They put out the word to any hunter who’d listen--green eyes, six feet, smart mouth--and together, he and Castiel, they searched.

Nothing.

* * *

  


Until this morning, when Jo had called them up before dawn, breathless.

“It’s Dean,” she’d said, no hesitation. “I’m sure. Just got a call from a friend. A hunter. Her name’s Veronica. She’s in upstate New York, way upstate. On Lake Ontario. The local police, they picked up this guy about a week ago, wandering in a state park. Yeah, I’m sure, Sam. It’s Dean.”

And now, here they are in a cramped cul-de-sac in Henderson, New York, sticky with stress, with the heat, and there’s no place to park. Of course there isn’t. No driveway at 402 to slide into. Not one single space at the curb.

Fuck it, Sam thinks, slamming the brake in the middle of the street. This is close enough.

The car’s barely stopped before he’s out of the door, Castiel fast on his heels.

The porch light snaps on as they make the front door and Sam leans into the doorbell, hard. It’s a buzzer, the old-fashioned kind, and Sam can hear the sound echoing inside.

“Please,” Castiel says at his side. An entreaty. A prayer. “Please.”

The door, it flies open Ali Baba and a woman’s there, tiny. Dressed in dark hair, muddy jeans, and disapproval.

She says: “Who the hell are you?”

Sam’s heart is doing cartwheels, but he gets the words out, somehow. “I’m Sam. This is Cas. We’re, uh. We’re friends of Jo’s.”

Her face gives way a little, but she doesn’t invite them in. “Oh,” she says. “She said you’d be coming tomorrow.”

“No,” Cas says, “we’re here now.”

The woman, Veronica, she raises an eyebrow. “He wasn’t going anywhere, you know. I wasn’t going to let him get out, the state he was in.” She shrugs. “Anyway, he couldn’t give me a name until the day before yesterday. His or anybody else’s. He’s damn lucky I have a friend on the force. Anybody else, talking angels and demons and that, they’d have tossed him Bellevue, no questions asked.”

Beside him, Cas is vibrating, a violin string pulled too tight. “Where is he?”

She stares at Cas, hard, her brown eyes gone almost black in the porch light. “He’s not in here. He’s out back, in the in-laws apartment over the garage.”

Sam grabs Cas’ elbow. Holds the both of them steady. “Great. We’ll just go--”

“He’s coming with us,” Cas says, his voice like a blade. “Right now.”

She holds up one hand, keeps the other fast on the doorknob. “Fine. That’s just fine.”

“Thank you,” Sam says.

She doesn’t answer. Just looks away and shuts the door in their faces.

Then they’re moving again, together, shooting towards the back of the house, towards the garage. 

It’s a standalone, narrow. The same color as the house. There’s room for one car and a lawnmower, maybe, if you jammed it in at an angle. Not much else. But there’s a staircase at the side, a little wider than a ladder. 

A door at the top.

It’s open when they hit the last step. A body bent over, familiar, even in the shadows.

“Sam,” Dean says, in a voice Sam’s never heard. “Cas.”

Because he’s crying, Sam realizes. Dean is crying, fat tears pouring over his cheeks like he doesn’t care who sees them. And why should he, Sam thinks. It’s only us.

Cas makes a noise, low and hurt, and then he’s cupping Dean’s face in his hands, fingers winding through the wet. “Dean,” he says. “Oh. Dean.”

Dean grabs Cas’ wrist and closes his eyes. Lets out his breath, like he’s been holding it in for forever. “Hi.”

Cas reels a little and Sam slides in behind him, takes Cas’ weight while Cas takes up Dean’s. There are crickets wailing, the dull thud of cicadas somewhere, and Dean says, gruff: “Please. Get me the fuck out of here.”

Cas cuts him with silver. Sam washes his tears with holy water. They strike every test they can think of, as fast, and Jo was right, Sam thinks, wrapping his arms around his brother at last. It’s Dean. Thank god. It’s Dean.

He roars the Impala out of the cul-de-sac with more volume than necessary, more speed. For Sam, it’s still not fast enough.

  


* * *

  


Nobody says a word for miles. Fifty. Fifty more.

“I didn’t know where I was,” Dean says finally, halfway past midnight. “For the longest time, I--it wasn’t just that I didn’t know my name, or anybody else’s, it was, like, more fundamental than that. It was--”

It’s hot in the car, even now, in the dark, but in the rearview, Sam watches Cas reach over and grab Dean. Pull him close.

“It was like,” Dean says again, his fingers curled into Castiel’s collar, “I had no idea that I was alive. Everything felt like a dream, you know? I felt like I was asleep all the damn time. Didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. And the worse part was, I could feel it, what was gonna happen, the second before that thing booted me skyward. I swear, I could feel who I was just, like, leaking away, falling out of my head, and I was so fucking scared, Castiel. Christ.”

He hides his face in Castiel’s neck and Sam turns away, back to the road, measuring the miles, the minutes, by the sound of Dean’s sobs.

“Shhh,” Castiel murmurs. “Dean. You’re here, now. With me. And with Sam.”

He says those words over and over. In English. In Mandarin. In Swahili. In something Sam thinks is Aramaic. Over and over again.

He’s still at it when they pull into a motel in Corey, Pennsylvania, two shakes from three in the morning. 

“You’re here, Dean,” Cas says again, louder, as Sam shuts the door solid behind them. Turns the lock. “With me. And with Sam.”

“Yeah?” Dean says, swaying in Castiel’s arms. “You sure about that?” He lifts his head and Sam can see the uncertainty there. The ache. 

Dean reaches for him, wraps their fingers together like twine. “Show me,” he says, lifting his face for a kiss. “Sammy. Cas. Please. Show me that I’m really here.”

They undress him together, tracing over unfamiliar bruises. New scars. Sam holds his face, strokes his thumbs down Dean’s cheeks and sucks on his tongue while Cas unbuckles his belt, tugs his jeans down his thighs and kisses his spine. Pets at his cock.

“Please,” Dean says again, over and over. “Please.”

On the bed, Cas pulls Dean over him, melds their bodies together. Clutches Dean’s hips and moans into his mouth. Sam yanks off his shirt, his boots, everything, and watches them touch each other, desperate and loving.

“Oh,” Castiel rumbles. “Yes. _Yes_ , Dean.”

Sam fumbles for condoms, for lube, and sits on the side of the bed, content to watch them kiss, deep and sloppy. To watch Dean’s arm move like a piston between them as Cas’ nails dig into his neck.

When Cas comes, it’s Dean who cries out, presses their foreheads together and does it again.

“Fuck,” he pants. “Come on. Fuck me, Sam.”

Sam works him open, clumsy and quick, as Dean sucks at Castiel’s neck. His shoulders. His nipples. Until Cas gets a hand in his hair and yanks him up, shoves their mouths back together. Sam has to chase them, has to wind up the bed as Dean grinds into Cas’ hip, then pushes back on Sam’s fingers.

He’s beautiful, Sam thinks, stupid with it, with the way Dean’s skin is shining, freckles like long arms of a galaxy reaching out from beyond. His brother. Dean. And he’s here.

When Sam finally slides into him, Dean shudders and goes still. Stays that way until Sam’s filled him up, until they’re locked together and shaking.

“Sam,” he says, broken glass. “Now. Please, baby. Now.”

Whatever Sam says or thinks, then, he loses it in Dean’s body, in the way he lets Sam lift him up and off of Cas, settles Dean down on his cock. Dean just goes with it, leans back and presses his spine to Sam’s chest, and hums in Sam’s ear, wordless and pleased.

“Like that?” Sam says, rolling his hips until Dean swears for him, low and pretty. “Is that good, Dean? This what you want?”

Dean reaches back, hooks his arm around Sam’s neck.

“Yeah,” he says, lips slurring over Sam’s cheek. “Sam, _fuck_. Yeah.”

The bed lurches as Cas sits up, an azure sunrise before them. He wraps his hands around Dean’s shoulders and leans over, hums against Sam’s mouth, the sound hot and content.

“Yeah,” Sam murmurs. “Yeah, Cas. Come on, sweetheart. Suck his cock. You want that, don’t you, Dean? Cas’ mouth on your cock?”

“Yes,” Dean hisses, arching in Sam’s arms like the word’s been kicked out of him. “Yeah. God, I want--”

Cas smiles, big and beautiful, like he hasn’t in fucking forever, and flows away. Lets go of Dean’s shoulders. Ducks his head. 

“Better hold on to him,” Sam spits, and shit, he can feel it, how close he is, closer with the sounds Dean is making, blooms of pleasure that fill up the room. “Get his hair, Dean. Yeah, _god_. Like that. Fuck. That’s right. Fuck Cas’ mouth, baby. Fill him up.”

Now, Dean throws his head back and wails, just like always, his body twisting as tight as his knuckles in Castiel’s hair, white against all of that black.

And Sam, he lets it all go, all those months of worry and fear; they’re blown away as he tucks his face into Dean’s neck and comes and comes, shuddering grateful, gives into the maelstrom at last.

Later, Dean falls asleep between them, clutching their hands, and Sam thinks, I should call Jo. And Bobby. Maybe kick a prayer up to Gabriel, let him know.

Instead, he kisses Dean’s hair, leans over and finds Castiel’s mouth.

The wind rattles the windows, the door, and Sam thinks, well. It’s blowing the right way at last. West. Towards home.

Tomorrow, they’ll drive back to Iowa, to their tiny apartment with a kitchen the size of a phone booth. Tomorrow, Sam will make grilled cheese for dinner and they’ll watch _Army of Darkness_ for the eight millionth time. Tomorrow, Cas will strip off and starfish in the middle of their mattress, the one that eats up the whole bedroom, and dare anybody to move him.

Tomorrow, Sam will say the word “retirement” again, for the first time in ages, as casually as he can.

And tomorrow, he thinks, for the first time, Dean will listen.

Castiel makes a sound, like windchimes in the distance. “Sam,” he whispers. “It’s alright now. You’re here. With me. And with Dean.”

Sam sighs. Rests his chin on his brother’s shoulder, curls his hand around Castiel’s wrist. Closes his eyes.

Tomorrow, he thinks. Yeah. Tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed with love from "Blow blow thou winter wind," a song from _As You Like It_ , Act II, Scene VII.


End file.
